1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telephone systems and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for activating telephone services utilizing telephone numbers contained within voice messages.
2. Related Art
Modern telecommunication systems and devices have provided significant increases in the number of available telecommunication services and improvements in the flexibility of use of those services. Included among these services are new telephone features such as voice-dialing and call-return. These new features, however, have generated additional problems while also opening the way for even further improvements.
Conventional call-return services are limited to the telephone number of the telephone that originated the call. Thus, if a person leaves a voice message that indicates the return call should be placed to a number other than the originating number, a traditional call-return service will not function properly. The person leaving the message may utilize a separate call-forwarding service such that a returned call is forwarded to a different telephone number. This approach, however, creates extra work for a caller and is thus undesirable.
Moreover, conventional call-return services typically rely upon access to a Caller ID signal received as part of the original call. But modern privacy concerns have lead many people to block the Caller ID signals on all their outgoing calls, thereby making traditional call-returns services inoperable for many calls.
Because a traditional call-return service cannot return a call to a number left in a voice message, a user must dial the phone number in that message in order to return the call. Even in the case of voice-dialing systems, this creates an added burden on the user of a call-return service. The user must go through the extra mental steps involved in remembering the phone number and then repeating it back to the voice-dialing system.
In addition, if the user wishes to save the phone number for later use, but not the voice message, the user is forced to write the number down or remember it long enough to input it into their user directory system. When the user is operating a wireless phone in some situations, these added distractions introduce undesirable hazards and/or delays.
Therefore, what is needed is a method and apparatus for enabling easier placement of return calls to voice messages that contain a phone number.
This invention can be regarded as a method of enabling provision of communication services based upon the content of a voice message. The method includes the steps of receiving a command, selecting a voice message, and processing the voice message using speech recognition. The method further includes the steps of isolating a spoken number in the voice message, and initiating provision of a communication service using the spoken number, the communication service being based upon the command. In this fashion, the present invention enables return calls to be generated from voice messages without the use of caller ID information, and without the need to remember or write down a telephone number.
This invention can also be regarded as a method of generating telephone numbers from voice messages. The method includes the step of using speech recognition to isolate a spoken number in a voice message, and confirming to a high degree of accuracy that the spoken number represents a telephone number. The method further includes the step of converting the spoken number into a data sequence representing the telephone number. This data sequence is then made available for immediate or later use. In this way, telephone information contained within a voice message need not be written down or remembered.
Further features and advantages of the invention as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.